Tuesday, March 24, 2009

Season of the Snake by Claire Davis

Nance is married and has everything she has ever wished for; a happy marriage, burgeoning career, etc. Her sister Meridith keeps ending up in abused relationships, the last of which landed her in the hospital. Nance receives a call from their father telling them that Meridith went back to the apartment she shared with the boyfriend to pick up a few things and now he can't get in contact with her. Nance gets her husband Joe, who is going out for a run, to swing by the place and see what's going on. While Joe is running in the park with a Walkman on he doesn't hear the three teenage boys with the baseball bat coming up behind him.

Flash forward 5 years. Nance has now moved to Idaho where she conducts field research on rattlesnakes. She is now remarried to Ned, and everything is going well. Meridith shows up out of the blue and goes on a trip with Nance. She and Ned have never gotten along, because he makes her nervous. Meridith decodes to move to Idaho also, since there is nothing holding her back with the passing of their father. She and Nance become closer than they ever were before in their lives and when things start to really start going right, Ned starts behaving strangely. Leaves in the middle of the night for hours at a time, disappears from work, where he is a school principle. He is hiding something, but Nance refuses to accept that there is anything wrong with her idyllic life. Until one night of passion turns violent and she sees a side of her husband she never knew existed.

Good plot, keeps the pace going well, and ends with a major confrontation between the 3 main characters. The only down side was all the details about snakes - they are my biggest fear.

3 stars

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